


Confessions in Goodneighbour

by Morninglight (orphan_account)



Series: A Sparrow in the Wasteland [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Child Neglect, Depression, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:30:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5832664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Morninglight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reliving her husband's death in the Memory Den leads Sparrow Finlay to confess her worst failings as a wife and mother to Danse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confessions in Goodneighbour

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Sparrow and Danse won’t shut up, I swear! Trigger warning for death, violence, alcoholism, postnatal depression, fantastic racism and mentions of drug addiction/abuse, child neglect and abuse, and grief.

 

“I was beginning to think you didn’t like me anymore.”

            Cait regarded Sparrow with unwarranted suspicion as the Scribe entered Hangman’s Alley, a crooked maze of corrugated steel walls and wooden stairs that nevertheless had a healthy crop of corn and tatos growing near a still-solid brick building. Danse reminded himself that the Vault Dweller felt sorry for the chem-addled brawler and that introducing her teeth to his fist for her rudeness wasn’t appropriate, even though he felt it was. The settlers, four in number, tended the crops or pumped water with one standing on a guard post with a decently modded pipe rifle in hand.

            “Had to report to the Brotherhood,” Sparrow explained as she opened her satchel to reveal the materials for a machine gun turret. Proctor Ingram had forbidden the Field Scribe from taking one of the already-assembled turrets but instead took her aside and showed her how to make one from scavenged materials. Passing through an old high school – the one Sparrow’s husband had apparently attended – gave them access to all the required components.

            “I saw the airship,” Cait observed with an appropriate level of awe. “Good choice picking the big guns.”

            “I’m glad you approve,” Danse noted, unable to entirely remove the sarcasm from his voice. Cait reminded him of too many troublemakers in Rivet City and the idea of Sparrow being friends with her made the Paladin uncomfortable. Nick was useful and from the sounds of it, Piper was friendly enough – albeit rather nosy as befitted a reporter. But aside from raw muscle, Cait was a disaster waiting to happen.

            “Hello Paladin Tightarse,” the brawler greeted, flashing him a cheerful, slightly bloodthirsty grin. “Did they remove the stick up your arse with the power armour?”

            “Behave, both of you,” Sparrow said over her shoulder as she began to set up the turret. To Danse’s approval, the sentry remained on duty while the farmers wandered over to see what the Scribe was doing.

            Cait rolled her eyes at Sparrow’s back. “Don’t tell me you’ve undergone the same operation he did?” she asked.

            “Unlike _some_ , Field Scribe Finlay appreciates the need for military discipline and acts accordingly,” Danse barked at the redhead.

            “Is that what you’re calling it?” Cait asked with a leer.

            “Are you implying I’m having improper relations with my immediate subordinate?” Danse asked through gritted teeth, wondering if he could get away with just one fucking punch.

            “Of course not. I imagine you’re all very proper. Lights off, eyes closed and thinking of the Brotherhood.” Cait made a rude noise between her teeth and laughed openly at Danse’s glare.

            For someone who was so riddled with chems she couldn’t think straight, the brawler was far too perceptive for Danse’s comfort. Since Sparrow had fixed a meal for him in the ruins of Fort Strong, he’d imagined her in his bed, curled up safe between him and the wall. The flashes of temper she showed, anger hiding the grief and vulnerability in those brown eyes, were almost as treasured as the smiles she rarely displayed.

            The Paladin had known this woman for barely three weeks and he was falling in love with her.

            “Cait, back off,” Sparrow said over her shoulder with a hint of steel in the tone. “Danse is one fight you won’t win, even if he isn’t in power armour.”

            He folded his arms and stared down at the brawler as she assessed him with the eyes of a fighter. It was actually something of a shame that the Brotherhood had come so late to the Commonwealth because if they’d managed to get a hold of the Erin woman before the chems did, she could have been an asset instead of a liability.

            “Fine,” she groused. “But you need to take me out for a bit. I’ve run out of chems and I need to hit something.”

            “We’re going to Goodneighbour after here and then Diamond City,” Sparrow informed her. “I won’t lie – I want to see if the doctor can reduce your dependence on the chems.”

            “Why the hell for?” Cait demanded angrily.

            “Because you’ve taken so many for so long that they do nothing for you anymore,” the Scribe said as she screwed in something.

            “They stop me from hurting!” Cait shot back before stalking away to sulk in the corner where the beds were located.

            “I can certainly sympathise with that,” Sparrow said with a sigh before returning to her work. When Danse went to point out that despite her trauma, she hadn’t become like Cait, the look in her brown eyes silenced the words in his mouth and so he went to do something practical like assess the defences of this settlement.

            _The raiders who originally built the place certainly knew what they were doing,_ he conceded as he studied the arrangement of walls, guard posts and other defences. Located between two tall buildings of solid brick, Hangman’s Alley could be a death trap with a few armed settlers and a couple machine gun turrets – and Danse made note of where to place everything.

            He approached the sentry, who’d been relieved by a woman with a strong resemblance to him, and noted the man cleaning his gun with the ease of a professional. “Citizen,” he greeted.

            “Paladin,” replied the man with a strong NCR accent. He was tall and lean as the westerners were, long dirt-brown hair pulled back into a tail and leather bracers on his arms.

            “You’re familiar with the Brotherhood?” Danse asked in some surprise.

            “Yeah. The NCR and the lot at Lost Hills didn’t always get along.” The man flashed a bone-yellow smile. “I’m Simon, my sister’s Jane, and the other two are Anne and Sarah.”

            Danse looked over his shoulder at the two women watching Sparrow as she explained how to build the turrets for themselves. _Very_ technically she was breaking the laws of the Brotherhood but such turrets were common in the Commonwealth. He would have to remind her that anything more advanced wasn’t permitted to be shared – it would be a stretch to allow the use of the Brotherhood’s modified crops, though the decision would rest in Elder Maxson’s hands.

            “Has Cait been giving you trouble?” he asked Simon quietly.

            “She’s been pretty good,” Simon answered as he cleaned his pipe-rifle. “Kept on looking for Sparrow – err, Scribe Sparrow. There’s grief in Cait’s past, grief no one should bear.”

            Danse raised an eyebrow. “Know her, do you?”

            “No, but my mother was treated like a dog and worse by our stepfather, so I know the signs,” Simon explained. “I don’t ask questions and she doesn’t give answers, but she’s faithfully guarded us since Sparrow sent her here to do so.”

            The Paladin found himself flushing with shame. He’d written off Cait as useless and trouble waiting to happen, but she’d kept her promise to Sparrow.

            “I owe her an apology,” he muttered.

            Simon nodded. “That you do. Easy to judge when you’ve not had trouble in your life.”

            Danse _had_ suffered hunger and worse in his life before joining the Brotherhood. But that option hadn’t been here in the Commonwealth for Cait. Perhaps, like so much in the Wasteland, there was something that could be salvaged.

            He left Simon to his weapon cleaning and approached Cait as she paced around the sleeping area of the settlement, tucked under one of the walkways in a pragmatic use of limited space. “I owe you an apology,” he said without preamble.

            Cait made that rude noise again. “Why bother?” she asked flatly.

            “Because I assumed that you couldn’t keep a promise, that you were nothing but trouble.” Danse hated to admit he was wrong but it had to be done. “I was wrong.”

            The brawler’s green eyes flashed to Sparrow. “I thought about just pissing off after Tommy dumped me – said I was getting sloppy, the fucking ghoul bastard – but Sparrow’s all ‘I need help to find my baby boy’ and shite. Fucking Institute probably does worse to kids than what happened to me and there’s no way for them to fight back like I did.”

            Danse wasn’t even going to ask what happened to Cait, though it had to be fairly horrific to turn a child into a hardened, chem-addled fighter. “The Brotherhood’s doing what we can to help,” he assured her.

            “ _You_ might be, but I’m betting the ones on the big ship are doing it for their own reasons,” Cait noted shrewdly. “Still, rather be with you lot than the Railroad and the Minutemen are all fucking dead.”

            Danse couldn’t pass up the chance to ask a few questions of a local. “Do you know how the Minutemen died?” he asked.

            “Got themselves killed at Quincy,” Cait answered. “Before that, used to be citizen soldiers. Armed the farmers and did regular patrols, the whole gig.”

            The Paladin raised an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

            “They were for a bit until General Becker died. Some big monster came out of the sea near the Castle, their old outpost, and scattered the group to the wind.” Cait shrugged with studied nonchalance. “Rumour is might be one or two running around doing their thing but with how the world works, they’ll be all dead soon enough.”

            “A pity. Anyone who works to protect people should be applauded, not derided,” Danse observed quietly, making a note to see if the remaining Minutemen could be recruited into the Brotherhood. Local ground staff would be very helpful if a permanent presence was going to be established, as Maxson had implied and Sparrow certainly wanted.

            “If you give a shite, the last ones were heading north towards Concord,” Cait told him with a yawn. “Surprised Sparrow didn’t stumble across them on the way down here.”

            Given that the Vault Dweller had been desperately searching for a purpose, she would have thrown herself into the Minutemen’s cause and died fruitlessly – as much as Danse might applaud their goals, citizen soldiers were almost never trained or equipped properly and so they became easy prey for those more vicious than they – or became addicted to the power and turned into predators themselves.

            “Thanks for the information,” Danse told the brawler sincerely.

            “No problem. Might have a stick up your arse but you’re easy on the eye.” Cait leered again as Danse flushed.

            “Paladin?” Thankfully, Sparrow saved him from more embarrassing conversation with Cait.

            He turned around to face her and the completed turret. “Alright, listen up,” he said, taking command of the situation. “I’m going to show you where to put guards and turrets for the best defence!”

            Because the Alley was so small, it only took him ten minutes to explain the strategies, and even Cait was nodding thoughtfully. She wasn’t Brotherhood material but if she could be cleaned up from the chems, she could make a real go of it in a place like here.

            “I won’t lie,” Danse finished. “This settlement is sponsored by the Brotherhood of Steel and so we’ll need supplies from you. But in return, there will be regular vertibird patrols and we can be anywhere in the Commonwealth within two hours if a smoke grenade is launched, so you will be under our protection.”

            “How much will we be tithed?” Simon asked.

            “Forty percent of the cap value of your grown crops or goods equal to the amount annually, delivered to us quarterly, and free bivouac for our soldiers,” Danse admitted. “In return, you have the right to ask for medical treatment when the Scribes are here and the door’s always open for anyone who wants to join our ranks.”

            Sparrow nodded in Danse’s direction. “There’s also a cap bonus offered for any form of intact pre-War tech that you find.”

            The NCR man sighed. “More cost than I wanted, but still better than nothing,” he admitted.

            “Everything has a price and at least the Brotherhood are upfront about theirs, from the looks of it,” Cait observed.

            Danse nodded. “I used to be a junk vendor in Rivet City. The Brotherhood helped me and I sincerely hope that it can help you too.”

            “We really don’t have a choice,” Simon pointed out with another sigh. “But after what happened in the west-“

            He shuddered and Danse recalled distant rumours of a cruel legion of soldiers.

            “-It’s better than what we had,” the man finished. “Jane, Sarah, Anne?”

            “We’ll do it,” said the small, dark-haired woman who had to be Sarah. Anne, a grey-eyed woman with a swollen belly, nodded in silent agreement.

            “Fine,” Jane, a slightly shorter version of her brother with a dead right arm, agreed.

            “Good. I’ll pass on word to Elder Maxson so he can arrange patrols,” Danse promised. “Is there anything in the meantime we can do for you, keeping in mind there’s only two of us – three if we count Cait.”

            “You’d better,” the woman muttered darkly. “I’m bored shiteless here.”

            “Just the usual raiders,” Jane said. “Like radroaches, they are.”

            “We’ll see what we can do on the way to Goodneighbour,” Sparrow said. “I’ll come back in a day or two, hopefully.”

            They made their farewells before leaving the settlement. Of course, Cait knew how to get to Goodneighbour, which was another walled settlement near the place she called the Combat Zone.

            Danse knew scum when he saw it and Goodneighbour was riddled with it, human and ghoul alike. So he wasn’t particular surprised when a bald standover man approached and offered ‘protection’ for a low price.

            “Fuck off, dipshite,” Cait told him rudely. The Paladin thought she was being rather polite.

            “Whoa, whoa, time out,” rasped a ghoul in a ridiculously ornate outfit and tricorn hat as he approached. “What are you doing, Finn?”

            “Welcoming them to the neighbourhood,” sneered the standover man.

            “On their first visit, you lay off on the protection crap,” Hancock said firmly.

            “Why do you care? They’re not from here.”

            “Because I said leave them alone. Besides, the redhead is Cait, the reigning champion of the Combat Zone. Three hundred and something kills to her name.” Hancock smiled gruesomely at Cait, who preened a little.

            “You’re getting soft, Hancock. Might be a new mayor of Goodneighbour soon,” Finn retorted.

            “Come on, Finn, let’s talk about this.” Hancock opened his arms… and pulled a switchblade from his back pocket, driving it into Finn twice. As the man sank to the ground, Danse appalled at the casual murder, Hancock said sadly, “Why’d you have to break my heart like that?”

            Cait put a hand on Danse’s forearm to stop him from interfering. “Don’t,” she advised softly. “Hancock’s house, Hancock’s rules.”

            The ghoul approached the trio, still smiling, and Danse noted the ripple of Sparrow’s jaw in distaste. “You alright, sister? I know Cait would have handled old Finn, but sometimes a mayor has to make a point.”

            The Scribe swallowed as she nodded. “I’m fine, thank you.”

            “Good. Don’t let this incident taint our little community.” Hancock tilted his head, black eyes fixed on the slender brown-haired woman. “Goodneighbour’s of the people, for the people. You feel me?”

            “I feel you,” Sparrow said with far more diplomacy than Danse would have shown.

            “Good. Just remember who’s in charge.” The ghoul wasn’t even subtle in his pointed threat. “Rumour had it Cait was travelling with a Vault Dweller. I guess you’d be her?”

            “Sparrow Finlay at your service,” she answered politely. “The gentleman with me is Danse.”

            “Is his first name Tap, Square or Ballroom?” Hancock asked amusedly.

            Cait snickered. “Definitely Square. He’s boring as batshit and got a stick up his arse.”

            Danse simply pegged the ghoul with the time-honoured death glare. There was one freak he would gladly send to hell.

            “You must be one of those Brotherhood types,” Hancock continued, black eyes switching to Danse. “I have one simple rule: don’t fuck with me or Goodneighbour and we’ll be good. Feel me?”

            “Don’t interfere in Brotherhood business and you should be fine,” Danse informed the mayor through gritted teeth.

            “Fair enough.” Hancock smiled again and looked to Sparrow. “What brings the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 to our little community? You’re famous in Diamond City, you know.”

            “I need to see Dr Amari,” Sparrow said with a sigh.

            “So Piper said because Nick Valentine told her. I had her over here a couple days ago and offered her and Nat shelter if they need it.” Hancock tsked. “Not surprised McDonough’s trying to shut her down. Calling the man a soulless synth is an insult to soulless synths.”

            The ghoul pointed to the street corner. “Go around there and turn left. The Memory Den’s hard to miss.”

            “Thanks, Mayor Hancock,” Sparrow said with bemused gratitude.

            “No one particularly wants the Institute around,” the ghoul pointed out – rather reasonably, Danse had to concede. “Nick’s been waiting for you since last week.”

            “I had to report to the Prydwen,” Sparrow said quietly.

            “That the name of the airship? Someone likes his medieval poetry.” Hancock smirked and headed for the best building in the neighbourhood, leaving a bemused Sparrow, a smirking Cait and a slightly confused Danse behind.

            “Let’s go to the Memory Den,” Sparrow finally announced with a sigh. “Hopefully, we can get some answers.”

…

“Are you feeling alright?” Amari asked anxiously as Sparrow climbed out of the machine, eyes blind with tears from reliving Nate’s death and Shaun’s kidnapping.

            Danse caught her. Cait had taken herself off to Hotel Rexford to get some chems and at the moment, raw with the trauma of seeing Nate’s killing through the cold mind of Kellogg, Sparrow heartily wished she could join her.

            Wiping the tears from her eyes, she managed to make all the right sorts of noises with Amari and assure her that she could reach this Institute renegade Virgil. Except she had no fucking clue about how to do so.

            The Paladin led her upstairs to where Nick waited. When the synth spoke in Kellogg’s voice, it took Danse grabbing her – mindful of the rules in Goodneighbour – to stop her from clawing the synthetic skin from his face in mindless rage. When the detective spoke in his usual voice and expressed surprise at Danse’s flat assertion that he sounded completely different, Sparrow choked out an apology.

            At the moment, she wanted to purge her emotions through almost anything – chems, violence, she didn’t care.

            Danse hauled her out into the Memory Den, a worried Nick in their wake, and they found Hancock addressing his people about the danger of the Institute. The ghoul wrapped up his speech after the cheers of the crowd and emerged downstairs, looking grim. “What the fuck happened in there?” he asked.

            “Sparrow relived her husband’s murder through the eyes of the killer,” Danse answered flatly. “But we know how the Institute gets around.”

            “That so?” Hancock asked sympathetically.

            “Yes,” she grated. “They use teleportation. And the only person I know who can help me lives in the Glowing Sea!”

            “You’ll need lead-lined armour, RadAway, Rad-X and a few other goodies,” Hancock noted. “Pity you’re not a ghoul – you’d be immune to it.”

            “Until her brain rotted,” Danse pointed out tightly.

            “There is that minor danger.” The Mayor of Goodneighbour looked around at the dispersing crowd. “I can throw in a few bottles of Rad-X, a bit of Jet and Buffout. Weird things crawl out of the Glowing Sea and you might need the extra oomph.”

            Sparrow wanted to scream. Her world had been ripped apart _again_ and they were calmly discussing supplies!

            Hancock eyed her thoughtfully. “Maybe a bit of Daytripper or some Grape Mentats would help instead.”

            “No. She needs some rest.” Danse looked up at the sky. “Is there somewhere safe to sleep around here?”

            “The Hotel Rexford rents beds,” Hancock said.

            Danse scowled but nodded. Sparrow forced herself to remain stone-faced and offer Hancock thanks. God, but that Daytripper sounded good.

            “If you need anything, feel free to pay a visit. I keep an open door policy, even for the Brotherhood.” Hancock gave a lipless smile and headed back into his house.

            Sparrow pulled herself from Danse’s grip and stalked towards the Hotel Rexford, which was near the Memory Den. Oblivion was so tempting right now. So very tempting.

            Danse caught up with her just outside. “I know what you’re going through is hard,” he began, only for her to round on him, needing an outlet for the pain and rage.

            “What the fuck would you know?” she screamed at him.

            The Paladin’s strong jaw rippled with tension. “Because I had to shoot my best friend and fellow Brother in the head after he became infected with FEV and became a super mutant!”

            Several jaws dropped as the ghouls who made up the Neighbourhood Watch eyed the duo warily.

            Danse ignored them, his brown eyes pleading. “Don’t. _Please._ I’m not asking for the Brotherhood, I’m asking for myself.”

            He had no right, no right at all, to make such a plea after she saw her husband die _again._ Sparrow stormed past him into Hotel Rexford, intent on getting absolutely drunk and to hell with the Litany.

…

“What the hell happened?” Cait asked Paladin Tightarse with some surprise as Sparrow stormed in, dropped a handful of caps and demanded the strongest whiskey in the house. Of all the damned things the brawler expected, the straitlaced Vault Dweller downing the harsh alcohol in one shot like a professional wasn’t one of them, not with her pushing a visit to the doctor on Cait.

            Danse looked like he’d been dragged facedown through hell and back again, probably because he was watching the woman he loved destroy her future in the Brotherhood. He meant well, she supposed, and it was rare an iron-spined prick like him had the balls to apologise – even if he’d been right about her.

            “What happened?” she demanded loudly. If he didn’t answer her, she was going to take the Psycho and take it out on him.

            “The Memory Den made her relive the murder of her husband through Kellogg’s eyes,” he grated.

            Cait sat back down, rocked by the revelation. Then she waved the bartender over; the ghoul had made plenty of money selling alcohol to the Combat Zone, so she figured a favour or two was owed. “Put their drinks on me tab,” she said.

            “No,” Danse protested, only to find a glass of whiskey shoved in his hand.

            “She’s hurting at the moment,” Cait pointed out as she swigged her bottle of Gwinett Ale. One thing about Hotel Rexford was that the beer was always good and the chems better. “She can’t use chems, so she’s only got booze left.”

            The Paladin was practically crying, a sad sight to see. Cait figured he should have a drink because he obviously needed it.

            It was a bit grim to see the pair of them going through shit but Cait knew everyone was scum beneath the surface. Sparrow’s son was gone, taken by the Institute, and Danse was cock-blocked by a dead man. The sooner they realised the world was a shit place, the better, because it would stop hurting so much. Good intentions meant nothing in the Wasteland.

            The Paladin put the alcohol she’d so generously provided on the bar and caught Sparrow’s hand as she reached for it. “No,” he grated desperately. “We have a trail to the Institute. Power armour and a hazmat suit can get us through the rads with some Rad-X and RadAway. We can still find Shaun… but not if you lose yourself. If you won’t do it for me, do it for your son.”

            “That’s a low fucking blow, Danse,” Cait told him flatly. “You shouldn’t dangle hope in front of her like that.”

            Sparrow stared at the Paladin… and broke down into incoherent sobbing. He picked her up like she was a teddy bear in the hands of a behemoth, so Cait reached for the whiskey and told the bartender to stick the room on her tab with a sigh.

            There were no happy endings in the Wasteland but damned if she didn’t want to see one for a change. If anyone could pull it off, Cait supposed it would be Sparrow Finlay.

…

Sparrow’s hands were bruised from beating Danse’s chest as she wept incoherently, damning him and the whole fucking world to hell. The Paladin was like a brick wall of warm flesh, not even grunting though he surely had bruises. Damn him, damn the Brotherhood and damn the fucking Commonwealth.

            Eventually she sobbed herself to sleep and Danse didn’t even shift a damn bit. Fucking oversized Paladin bastard.

            When she woke up, a foul taste in her mouth from the whiskey, eyes red and gritty, and hands a mass of bruises, he was still awake and watching her with those haunted brown eyes.

            “I failed you,” he said simply. “I should have got you to see Doctor Quinlan about your emotional trauma before we came here.”

            “What good would it have done?” she asked bitterly. “That son of a bitch was just so fucking _cold_ when he killed Nate.”

            “And he’s now dead,” Danse reminded her gently. “Aside from where to find this Virgil, what else did you find out?”

            “Aside from his fucking life story?” Sparrow muttered. “He had Shaun for a few months. He looked about ten or so.”

            “So what we feared was true,” Danse noted. “What else?”

            Sparrow raised her tear-filled eyes to the Paladin’s. “There’s someone – probably the old man that Kellogg referred to – that Shaun considers his father.”

            “Oh, Sparrow.” Danse breathed her name with sympathy and sorrow. “I am so very, very sorry.”

            “I want them dead,” she said fiercely. “I want them dead for what they’ve done to Shaun.”

            “And we will make it happen,” he promised.

            The utter conviction in his voice made her believe him. Then she remembered how she acted last night and Maxson’s lecture on appropriate behaviour, and laughed despairingly. “There goes my career in the Brotherhood,” she half-laughed, half-sobbed.

            “You don’t need to worry,” Danse said quietly. “I’ll take the blame, seeing as I failed to offer the appropriate emotional support.”

            “You’re shitting me, right?” Sparrow blurted in frank amazement. “If not for you, I’d have not reached Diamond City!”

            “As your commanding officer, it was up to me to make sure you were psychologically capable of handling any duty,” he explained with a sigh.

            “I’m sorry, does the Litany include ‘how to cope with taking a stroll around a murderous mercenary’s subconscious’?” she asked sarcastically.

            “Not exactly,” Danse admitted.

            “Then get over yourself. I’m a big girl. I can handle whatever discipline Maxson throws at me.” The Vault Dweller smiled grimly. “Especially since I’m the only one who can find Virgil.”

            “Who is likely our only way to find the Institute,” Danse agreed.

            Sparrow sat up in the bed, swearing softly when she saw her hands… and only a couple bruises on Danse’s pecs. “What are you made of, iron?” she groused.

            The Paladin reached over for a stimpak on the bedside table. “Not quite. You don’t hit very hard.”

            He jabbed the needle into her arm and injected the healing stimulant; Sparrow watched her hands go from purple-black to yellow-brown with patches of green as they stopped hurting so much.

            “I’m sorry,” she said ashamedly.

            “Why? Better you beat your hands bloody than rot your brains with the alcohol they serve here or become addicted to chems.” Danse pulled out the syringe and set it aside.

            “Again,” Sparrow corrected with a sigh.

            The Paladin looked at her oddly. “What do you mean by ‘again’?”

            Sparrow lowered her gaze in shame, looking at the Paladin’s flat stomach. The man was in superb physical shape, even when compared to Nate.

            “I spent the last three months before the bombs fell addicted to Daytripper and Calmex,” she confessed. “When Shaun was born, everything just… went to hell. Nate was in Anchorage, my mother had been transferred to Washington – what you call the Capital Wasteland – and I had this screaming spawn that made messes at both ends on my hands. I felt useless and clumsy, so the Daytripper made me feel like a social butterfly and the Calmex helped with my balance and coordination.”

            “The birthing sadness,” the Paladin said quietly. When she looked at him, he sighed. “It’s something mothers sometimes suffer from. I don’t know why.”

            “The military psychiatrist called it ‘postnatal depression’,” Sparrow admitted. “Nate managed to get an honourable discharge after we won Anchorage because I was a wreck; he used the connections he’d built through my father to get some Addictol to help me shake off the addiction and Codsworth to help with the baby – if it became known I was a chem addict, I’d never get a decent job anywhere, let alone the military.”

            Her words became very soft. “I was just getting my life back together when the bombs fell.”

            “Hell.” Danse sighed, no doubt in disappointment. His opinion had come to mean a lot to Sparrow and to lose his trust and respect… That would hurt a lot.

            Then he shifted, his face coming back into the light and the pity on it enough to break her heart.

            “As Senior Paladin, I have a significant amount of leeway. That means we’re going to take the time to travel back to Sanctuary Hills and give your husband the burial he deserves.” Danse sighed again. “I won’t lie – I want to go through Concord. There might be some Minutemen alive there we can recruit. At least, that’s what I’ll be telling Elder Maxson in addition to searching for more clues about the Institute.”

            “You’d lie to your commanding officer-?” Danse silenced her by putting his fingers on her lips, the callus rubbing against the chapped flesh.

            “It’s not a lie. I intend to do everything I just said. But I think that burying Nate is the priority.”

            “Why?” Her lips moved against his fingers.

            “Because you need closure.” His fingers trailed along the scar that split her lips and ran down her chin. Something deep within fluttered briefly, a butterfly stirring its wings before falling still once more.

            _I think I could love this man one day,_ Sparrow realised as his fingers fell away. _Not yet. But one day._

It was that thought, and Shaun, that made her crawl out of bed and head for the shower. She would find her son and make a new life in this wasteland.


End file.
